The Strength That Counts
by The-Time-Travelling-Hippie
Summary: "I've seen a lot of blood, but H.M Murdock's was enough to cut me so deep that I was bleeding myself." Face's perspective in "Curtain Call".


**(A/N): Spoilers for Curtain Call, I guess. I just felt angsty. I probably won't even post this, it's so pointless.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the A-Team, but I sure wish I did.**

_**THE STRENGTH THAT COUNTS**_

* * *

I've seen a lot of blood.

I've seen bullets launch right through the chests of brave, young men out on the battlefield. I've seen Colonels and Commanders with scars deep enough they could hold a river. Hell, I've got scars covering and criss-crossing most of my body. I've fixed up stab wounds and shell wounds and I've stitched men back together.

I've seen a lot of blood, but H.M Murdock's was enough to cut me so deep that I was bleeding myself.

The way his eyes widened in panic when the gun aimed itself at Hannibal's back, he leaped and caught it right below his heart (thankfully not in it.) I felt my own heart stop and jump up in my throat. Then, we were out of there. The world spun around us. Hannibal, usually calm and collected, looked nervous.

The way his skin paled dramatically. The way his blood gurgled and oozed out of his chest like sludge from a marsh. The way his mind slipped from its already precarious balance on the tightrope that was sanity. Delirious, he knew he wasn't making sense, and his pained, brown eyes told us so and apologised for it.

The way he still tried to function. I remember having papercuts and acting like I'd lost a limb, and there he was, with a shaky smile on his ivory face, singing absently to himself and mumbling how it was only a "puncture in the old fuel tank".

The way he thought about us instead of himself. The way he told us to just leave him behind.

And I was reminded of our time spent in hell. We weren't missionaries anymore, we weren't guns for hire; we were a rescue team once again. And Hannibal said it like it was; we go out together or not at all. And goddammit he was right.

So he told us, he told us to leave him. It made my blood boil, because I knew men back in 'Nam who would have left him to bleed out in the blink of an eye, and we were not about to abandon one of our own like that.

A man who knows he's done for, a man who knows his time's up, a man who tries not to concern others with his dying, was Murdock. He believed that it was the end of the line for him, and so he warned us not to let ourselves be dragged down with his demise, to spare ourselves and let him carry on with his destiny. And we told him the only way we were _not_ going to leave him, ever.

Because I remember a time when I had left him, not on my own accord of course. But when we were arrested and he was committed, I recall him telling me over the phone about how lonely he was. How, he started to doubt his sanity for _real_. Whether there was any point pretending anymore. After all, when we escaped we went back to our daycare centres, our glamorous lives and our film careers, and what did he go back to? A cold hospital bed with a straight jacket and sedative waiting for him so he could spend the rest of the day drooling on himself.

The thought of it made me sick.

So I let him ring me when he's had enough, when he just needs to get out. He threatens me, saying "I'll go nuts if I stay in here any longer", and I laugh with him, but hesitantly because I wonder if he might do just that.

I'm shaken out of my haze when I hear the rolling of tires crackling the forest leaves on the ground and the door to the van open up in front of me.

He looks like hell.

Hannibal murmurs something to me in an annoyed voice and I respond back with something, but I'm not concentrating on him. I'm concerned for Murdock, being pulled into the cabin limply and nestled onto the couch like a rag doll playing make believe. He looks so small in B.A's big arms. I just want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him back and fourth. I want to tell him to get up and fight, because I know how strong he is but right now he looks weak. I want him to go back to being crazy, with the energy of a playground of kids.

But he doesn't.

I don't know what I'm hoping for, really. That he'll jump up and laugh it off, then go back to annoying B.A to no end and singing wacky show tunes. Maybe dress up as Napoleon or try to eat a light bulb or something even crazier than that.

But of course he doesn't do that, because he has a gaping hole in his chest and his eyes are glazed over and there are words tumbling out of his mouth that no one can understand, not even himself. And he's getting an infection, Hannibal says, so Tawnia and I have to leave him to get medical supplies.

Before I go out to the van I look at him. I see pain and yet thankfulness, because we didn't leave him. I smile so much it nearly turns into a grimace, and we head out.

All the time we are out, I can't stop thinking about a song he was singing. Will you still love me when I'm gone, or something along the lines of that. And it haunts me, the husky whispers echoing into the cabin, the emotionless face, death personified. It haunts me. I can't think about it.

So in a whirlwind of running on autopilot, back into military mode I went, I grabbed the medical supply and I made my way to him and Hannibal and B.A preparing to get the bullet out when we hear Decker and his droogs outside.

I'm about ready to open fire on them.

Did they know what it was like to hold a dying face, a friends life, in their hands. To stare into the eyes of someone you had known for over a decade, and watch that spark of life and mad joy flicker and fade and nearly burn away completely.

I didn't think they did. But, we outsmarted them and still got away.

And B.A went back to his daycare centre and I went back to my glamorous life and Hannibal went back to his acting. And then we went and saw Murdock back at his VA, in his straight jacket. He was nattering on about something to Decker, and when Decker had enough he drove away and Murdock danced over.

He was saying something we couldn't understand, and I don't think he knew exactly what he was saying either, but it was a good sort of crazy and I was glad he was back to... well...

I wouldn't exactly say normal.


End file.
